Currently, telephones are widely used for the purchase of goods and services. For example, it is common place for callers to purchase airline tickets, hotel accommodations, clothing, and house wares using the telephone. In fact, there are a multitude of television programs, and even entire television channels, dedicated to the advertisement of goods and services for purchase by telephone. It is also common place for callers to interact with local, state, and federal governmental bodies, as well as private companies to provide and obtain needed information using the telephone.
The ease with which a caller is able to consummate a purchase using a telephone is largely a function of the ability of the seller to provide a level of customer service that is adequate to answer the caller's purchasing questions, as well as take in the information required to complete the sale. While the personalized service of a live sales representative is adequate to fill these needs, it is expensive and limits the number of callers that may interact with the seller to the number of sales representatives that the seller employs. Accordingly, there is a need for automated methods of interacting with callers to consummate sales, as well as to provide needed interaction with governmental and private entities.
The ability of pleasing a caller using an automated call service is largely dependent on the ability of the automated service to provide interaction that is tailored as closely as possible to the caller's needs and interests. The art of tailoring automated sales services to the needs and interests of purchasers has been well developed in the computer arts where customer profiles are built from the customer's Internet activity. These profiles may then be used to send purchase opportunities to the purchaser which are targeted on the purchaser's interests.
The use of purchaser profile information has been less developed in the telephony arts, however it has begun to be used there. For example, Clifton et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,044 (Jan. 6, 2006), which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a method that identifies known callers and uses call history information for the caller to provide the caller with an opportunity to reorder what she previously ordered. The '044 patent, however, is limited in that it only tailors the interaction with the caller to a small degree, and only based on information obtained from the caller's previous interaction with the specific telephone service with which the caller is connected.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for an automated telephone service which is capable of tailoring interaction with a caller based not only on information obtained during a previous call, but also from third party sources. Further, there is a need for an automated telephone service which is capable of tailoring interaction with a caller based on a wide variety of information, and not just limited to prior purchase decisions. It is therefore an advantage of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention to provide the foregoing capabilities.
There is also a need for an automated telephone service which is capable of tailoring interaction with a caller based on the caller's participation in multiple telephone calls with the service. The tailored interaction resulting from repeat telephone calls with the caller may include offering incentives, such as discounts, in return for the caller's willingness to participate in more than one call, and/or make a purchases after more than one call. It is therefore an advantage of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention to provide systems and methods which offer such incentives and discounts.
Additional advantages of various embodiments of the invention are set forth, in part, in the description that follows and, in part, will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the description and/or from the practice of the invention.